our values

CORE VALUES: What is important to us?

Uplifting Worship: Since God is great, good, and glorious (Psalm 100), and since we believe that God-filled worship is the wellspring of congregational spiritual vitality, our church will endeavor to regularly engage His living presence through uplifting, enthusiastic, energizing, God-filled and God-exalting worship experiences.

Small Groups: Though large groups are well-suited for inspiring worship, we believe that small groups are best -suited for building caring relationships, making disciples, and applying the truths of God’s Word to personal needs and situations. Therefore, we encourage members of this body of Christ to share life in Christ together with others in a small group.

Prayer: As an expression of our humble dependence upon God’s provision and power, and of our desire to see God’s power released among us in life-changing ways, our church will attempt to saturate its ministries with personal and corporate prayer.

Grace and Truth: Just as Jesus was full of both grace and truth, so also our church will seek to extend accepting grace to sinners while at the same time calling for repentance and submission to the truth of God’s Word. We will not condone sin or compromise truth in the name of tolerance, nor will we side with the self-righteous in condemning sinners. Jesus was the embodiment of truth and holiness and the friend of sinners. In our preaching, teaching and living, we will seek to reflect the light of Jesus’ grace and truth to a sin-darkened world.

Love and Unity: Since Jesus taught that love is the authentic mark of a Christian and unity authenticates a church’s witness to the Gospel, our members will promote love and unity in our church body. We will emphasize the common good of the body above the personal preferences of individuals. For the sake of Christ and His Gospel, we will also seek unity and cooperation with other Christian churches across denominational and racial lines (without compromising doctrinal beliefs or teachings).

Sending Home-Grown Missionaries: Not only will we support BGC missionaries and other worthy missions endeavors, we will also pray, work and give to train, support and send out members of our church to be workers in God’s harvest fields throughout the world as both short -term and career missionaries.

Spirit-empowered Ministry : Rather than working in the energy of the flesh or out of a sense of religious duty, we will yield to the control and leading of the Holy Spirit and seek the fullness of His power for service and witness. Since the Holy Spirit gives abilities and desires to every Christian for Christian service, the church will assist our members in the discovery, development and use of their ministry gifts.

Balanced Focus : Healthy churches both build up one another and extend Christ’s love to the lost. We will seek to maintain a balance of both disci pling those within our church fellowship and reaching out to the unsaved outside of our church fellowship. Since the natural tendency is to become more inward-focused over time, we will seek to promote a strong outward -focus to maintain a healthy balance.

Strengthening Families : Since part of God’s purpose for marriage is to reflect the love between Christ and the church, and since part of God’s purpose for families is the making of disciples, Cornerstone is committed to ministering effectively to married couples, parents, and children. We recognize the strategic value of ministering effectively to families as the foundational unit of the church and society. Therefore, we will provide ministries for education and discipleship so that children, youth, and adults may be won to Christ and taught to follow him in love and obedience.

Sanctity of Human Life: We believe that human life is of inestimable worth and significance in all its dimensions, including the unborn , the aged, the widowed, the mentally handicapped, the unattractive, the physically challenged, and every other condition in which humanness is expressed from conception to the grave. We believe that the child in the womb is a human life created and loved by God. We also believe that in order to love and protect unborn children, we must love and care for their mothers. We believe that Jesus loves both children and women, including women with unplanned pregnancies and women who have had abortions. Therefore, while seeking to protect unborn children, we will also show love for wounded women with broken lives.

People, Programs, Place: Our church is in the disciple-making business. Disciples are made by people and programs, not by buildings. To promote the health and growth of our church, we will invest our resources in the following order of priorities: (1) People: Calling pastoral staff and equipping members to be effective ministers of Christ; (2) Programs: Developing, supporting, starting, improving and expanding programs and ministries and missions to make disciples of Christ; (3) Place: Utilizing and expanding facilities as a tool for effective ministry. When making decisions about investing our church resources, we will seek to remember that the bottom line for our church is making disciples of Christ.

Conflict Resolution: At Cornerstone we are committed to godly conflict resolution. Scripture sets forth a specific model for how to go about resolving conflict within the church body. You may follow this link to read further on how Scripture guides conflict resolution at Cornerstone..